NECC vs Cathedral, A-game, May 20, 2012
By: Dravya Sharma

NECC won the toss and decided to bat first on ascorching day (33/34
degrees) in May. The hot day in May wasn't assurprising as winning
the toss! It was a great start to the A season.Saunil and Nimeesh had
a good opening stand of 30-odd. Salman Arshad, thenew Cathedral
member, bowled a good spell and got the openersout. In the middle of
the innings, our new member, Varun batted well, runningthe quick
singles and doubles with odd big hits making closeto 20 runs. However,
he fell to Salman as well. At the time, NECC wasaround 60 odd for 5.
The lower middle order stepped up. Nikhil played areally good innings
making 30 odd. He had a good partnership withVarun. Later Arun and
Amrinder had an excellent partnership that tookBurghs from 130 for 8
to 180. Amrinder hit some lusty blows and ran wellwith Arun taking score to 184.

Hot day, thick outfield, game on.

NECC opening bowlers didn't start very well.Bowling a few wides and
wrong lengths. Also, the Cathedral openers werepatient and had a good
opening partnership of 50 odd. Burghs came backwell with Cathedral's
nemesis, Saunil getting a couple of quick wickets.Harpreet kept
things calm at the other end. Although, Saunilbowled in great
partnership with Navdeep and Cathedral were 100for 3 30-odd overs.
Game was well poised. However, Adil and Deejaycame in and went quickly
but not without hitting a few big hits and puttingCathedral in the
driver’s seat.

And then, just when you feel you've seeneverything in an OVCC cricket
game, the most bizarre thing happens. The umpiretells us that we have
26 over’s to bowl in 1 hr, in spite of being toldwe were on time 30
mins before. When 8 over’s were left, the umpiresaid that NECC had 1
min to bowl 6 over’s. That's a 36 run penalty whenthe opposition had
only 20 odd runs to make. Amit and Tobie justplayed out the next
couple of over’s knowing they would win on slowover rate and NECC
bowlers just went through the motions. Some heateddiscussions ensued
with the umpire and the team, till we pointed outthat the umpires had
allocated 3 hrs for a 50-over game! They gave us32 less minutes to
bowl our quota!... Final result, we go back inwith Cathedral needed
24 from 6 over’s. Tobie hit a few lusty blows andgame was done in 49
over’s.

Not a great start for the A team, but a goodspirited effort. The
youngsters stepped up and one feels they'll needto continue to do so
for the rest of the season. NECC gets a chance toavenge their loss
against Cathedral for another A game next weekend.